ANOTHER FAILED BUSH TALKING POINT

Wednesday's USA TODAY includes a column by former Ozarker J.D. Crouch, now the deputy national security adviser to President Bush. Crouch is trying to justify the war of choice in Iraq.

We know the guy and know he's smart. So we're disappointed when we read such an obvious lack of logic in Crouch's column:

Coalition forces did not find WMD. That in no way minimizes the threat Saddam posed. Weapons inspector David Kay testified that Iraq “certainly had the intentions at a point to resume their programs.” As his successor, Charles Duelfer, later explained, Saddam was purposefully gaming the sanctions system with the intent of restarting his weapons programs when the world looked away.

The threat posed by Saddam, of course, was directly tied to whether he had weapons of mass destruction. Someone with nukes is much more dangerous than someone without them. For Crouch to argue otherwise is disingenuous, at best.

As for the weapons inspectors, they concluded Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Did he have the intention to resume such programs? Sure, the same way North Korea has the intention of being a nuclear bully. But that doesn't mean it will come to pass.